UPDATE (PM 20th Oct 09): Had a couple of snotty emails telling me that I should be charging for this advice or at least bundling this into my own web projects. The reason - they charge for it and I'm giving away "secrets". These are not secrets - they should be the sensible things that people ask before embarking on any web project. Why charge for this when you should be doing this off you own back in business. Granted there may be a checking of the right information and an outsiders eye on this could be a good thing... but if you run your own business and you don't ask yourself these questions, you are leaving it the hands of someone that knows nothing about your business to blueprint something onto you. The guys that emailed me - You should have more value on the delivery of your projects before attacking me and the info that I choose to share. If you value the output of your agencies then you will want to be sharing this info for free anyway! No?

So you’re in business and you know that everyone says that a business is not a business without a website.

I’m not going to tell you if I agree with that statement or not, but what I am going to say is…

! ! ! STOP ! ! !

Before picking up that phone to request a quote from the expensive agency down the road, your cousin Tim who can do websites for a tenner and that T-shirt printer who said that she could get her graphics bod to knock something up for you… make sure you can answer these three questions first!

When planning your first small business website, or a revamp to the one you knocked together through your web hosting template system, it is crucial to know what you are going to these guys to do for you. Here are those questions:

• Who is your target audience?
• How will your target audience find you?
• How will you convert your visitors into sales?

These questions sound obvious, look obvious and are obvious, but it's amazing how many people don't bother...and then moan that "our website doesn't bring us any business".

• Who is your target audience?

You need to give a lot of thought to your target market. Who is that you want to attract to your website? How old are they? Are they Male or Female? Are they Directors of Blue Chips or Stay-at-home Mums?

The important one is - why do you want them to come to your site? The answer to that is more than likely to sell them something - a product, a service, or an idea perhaps.

Claiming that your market is anyone and everyone is far too vague - how can you be everything to everyone? In my time in business I know that I have been there and done this - it didn’t work. Your website will lack focus, and fail to maximise its potential. Ideally you should be aiming to creating products and services for a niche market - and give it some clout!

• How will they find you?

Creating a niche will help a great deal with search engine optimisation (SEO) and online marketing. Essentially this niche, executed with the right SEO techniques online will drive hot leads to your site.

Consider what keywords or phrases your target market might type into a search engine to find you. Actually do the searches yourself. Who comes up in the top 10? Because that's where you need to aim for. Are your competitors there? Look at their sites. Do they work? How can you improve on them? Identify something unique about your business that sets it apart from the rest and focus on that.

Those keywords - or keyphrases to be more accurate - need to be incorporated into your pages of your site - in the page titles, in the headings, and in the internal links.

The biggest secret, not really a secret at all, is building inbound links to your web pages (not just your homepage) - that is pages on external websites that link to pages on your site. Crucially this link acquisition should be a natural growth - where inbound link count increases at a gradual pace. If it’s not gradual you could get shot down for it!

The pages that link to yours should be relevant, on-topic and ideally contain the same keywords - especially in the linking text. Search engines rank pages based upon their reputation - your ranking will be determined by what other (preferably high ranking) pages say about your page.

• How will you convert your visitors into sales?

First up - don't just tell them what you do or sell. Tell them why they want it (yes, want - not need). Offer incentives, freebies, discounts - anything to get that dialogue started.

Current research indicates that the human brain makes a judgment about a web page within a twentieth of a second! That doesn't leave you very long to make an impression. So, make sure that you have your Unique Selling Point (USP) clearly visible on your home page - and preferably prominent on every one of your other pages. After all, it's not a given that the home page will be the first page that the visitor sees, particularly if they have found you via a search engine or one of your other inbound links.

Then make sure that you list your bullet-pointed guarantees - not got any… write some.

Visitors have to understand why you are different from the rest, and why they should deal with you and not your competitors. They have to understand this pretty much instantly.

Lastly, make sure that your site has a funnel-like structure. Identify your important pages - usually the "call to action" or purchase pages - and make sure all roads lead to those pages. Your internal links - like their external equivalents - should describe the target page.

If you sell shiney widgets, don't call your products page "Products", call it "shiney widgets", and make sure that the links pointing at this page also say "shiney widgets". This will not only help the search engines identify and rank the most important pages in your site, it will also lead your visitor to that all important conversion.

- Once you’ve looked at this all, then pick up that phone!